The next two days were a crucible of command. The Sea Serpent became a microcosm of the world he sought to conquer, a floating ecosystem of fear, ambition, and grudging respect. Arima ran the crew with the brutal efficiency of a Yakuza captain, his orders concise, his expectations absolute. He was not a beloved leader; he was a force of nature, a predator that the lesser creatures on board learned to avoid.
Higgs, he found, was the key. The Sergeant was the crew's alpha, and by mastering him, he mastered them. He didn't cajole or inspire. He tested. He ordered drills at ungodly hours, forcing the men to load and fire the cannons until their shoulders ached and their hands were raw. He had Takeshi run them through close-quarters combat exercises on the deck, the swordsman's fluid, deadly grace a silent, humiliating lesson for the bruiser twins, whose clumsy attacks were effortlessly parried and dismissed. He pushed them, not to build camaraderie, but to shatter their complacency, to replace the ingrained habits of the Marines with the ruthless pragmatism of a pirate crew.
On the third day, as they sailed into the predicted path of the G-8 convoy, the atmosphere on board was tense, a coiled spring of nervous energy. Rizzo had plotted a likely interception point, a narrow strait between two small, uncharted islands, a place where the larger Marine transport ships would have to slow their advance.
Arima grunted, his gaze fixed on the horizon. The plan was simple, audacious, and relied on the most unreliable variable of all: people. "Higgs!" he barked, the command cutting through the tense silence.
The Sergeant appeared at his side, his face a rigid mask of professionalism. "Captain?"
"The powder," Arima said, his voice low. "Give it to Doc. He's going to be our ghost."
Higgs's eyes narrowed, a flicker of understanding and professional appreciation in their depths. He gave a curt nod and went to carry out the order. The plan was for Miller, the medic, to take a small boat under the cover of darkness and infiltrate the lead Marine ship. His task was not to fight, but to administer the 'Sea Sickness' powder to their water supply. A surgical strike to decapitate the convoy's leadership at the crucial moment.
An hour later, as the last sliver of the sun vanished below the horizon, a small skiff was lowered into the water. Miller, a picture of resigned duty, paddled silently towards the distant, looming shadow of the Marine convoy. The rest of the crew held their breath, the only sounds the creak of the ship's timbers and the gentle slap of waves against the hull. He was an extension of their will, a ghost slipping through the night.
An eternity seemed to pass. Then, a single, faint flash of light from the direction of the convoy. Miller's signal. Success.
"Rizzo, take us in," Arima commanded, his voice a calm, measured growl that held no hint of the adrenaline surging through his veins. "Full sail. I want us on their flank before they even realise we're here."
The Sea Serpent leaped forward as the sails caught the wind, the ship responding with an eager, predatory grace. They cut through the water, a phantom ship hurtling through the darkness, the element surprise their greatest weapon.
The Marine convoy came into view, a cluster of lights against the black canvas of the night. Two smaller escort frigates flanked a larger, heavier transport, its silhouette a lumbering beast in the gloom. As Sysara had predicted, the strait funnelled them, forcing the ships into a narrow line.
"Ready the port-side cannons," Higgs ordered, his voice a low, steady rumble. His crew moved with a quiet, practiced efficiency, the earlier drills erasing the fumbling hesitation of mere days ago. They were no longer ex-Marines playing pirate; they were a weapon, and he was their master.
"Wait for it," Arima said, his eyes narrowed, the Observation Haki a blanket of awareness over the scene. He could feel the confusion on the lead ship, the crew's energy a muddled, sickening soup. Miller had done his work. The lead frigate was beginning to drift, its commands becoming frantic and disjointed. The convoy was breaking formation. The transport ship was exposed.
"Now," he commanded, the word a whip crack in the tense night air.
"Fire as she bears!" Higgs roared.
The deck of the Sea Serpent erupted in a thunderous, deafening roar. Twelve cannons spat fire and smoke, the sound a physical blow that shook the very air. Iron shot tore through the darkness, screaming across the water and smashing into the transport's hull. The splintering of wood was audible even over the din, followed by the panicked shouts of the Marine crew.
The rear escort frigate, its path blocked by the island, was trying to turn, to bring its own guns to bear. But the Sea Serpent was already moving, a fleeting shadow. Rizzo handled the wheel with a desperate, inspired grace, swinging the brigantine around the transport's vulnerable stern.
"Rake them!" Arima yelled.
A second volley, this one from the swivel guns, tore into the transport's exposed rudder and quarterdeck. Marines were cut down like wheat, their bodies tumbling into the sea. The transport was a wounded, crippled beast, listing heavily, its sails a chaotic tangle.
This was the moment. "Takeshi! You're with me! Higgs, keep the frigate off our back!"
"Right!" Higgs barked, already shouting orders to reload the main cannons, the twins moving with a brutal, single-minded purpose.
Arima drew the Sword of Triton, the blade humming with a dark, eager energy. Takeshi was at his side, his katana a silver whisper in the darkness. Without a word, they ran to the port rail and leaped. The gap between the ships was a churning maelstrom of dark water and splintered wood, but they cleared it with ease, landing on the transport's deck in a crouch.
The scene was one of chaos. The surviving Marines, sick and disoriented from the powder, were a disorganized mess. Some were clutching their stomachs, others were fumbling with their weapons, their faces pale and slick with sweat. They were lambs to the slaughter.
Arima was a whirlwind of death. He didn't waste time with finesse. The Sword of Triton was a brutal, efficient tool. He parried a clumsy bayonet thrust, the steel of the Marine's rifle snapping like a twig, and sliced the man in two. He moved through the crew, a force of nature, a predator unleashed. The mythical blade drank deep, the blood of the weak and the foolish.
Takeshi was the opposite. He was a surgeon, a master of his craft. He moved with a fluid, deadly grace, each strike a precise, economical work of art. He didn't waste a movement. He didn't revel in the carnage. He simply... ended things. His katana was a silver blur, and the men who faced him were dead before they even realised they were in a fight.
A Marine officer, a man with a captain's bars on his collar and a desperate, crazed look in his eyes, charged at Arima, a sword held high. "For justice!" he screamed, a feeble war cry in the face of overwhelming brutality.
Arima sidestepped the attack with a contemptuous ease, then slammed the pommel of the Sword of Triton into the man's temple. The officer crumpled to the deck, a broken doll.
"Justice is for the victors," Arima growled, kicking the man's sword away.
They fought their way to the main hatch, a path of carnage in their wake. The hold was their target. The treasure. The reason for this whole bloody enterprise. They descended into the belly of the beast, the air thick with the smell of blood, gunpowder, and fear.
The hold was a large, open space, lit by a few swinging lanterns. And in the center, stacked on wooden pallets, were the crates. The prize. A dozen large, wooden crates, each stamped with the Marine's insignia and the words 'Special Containment Unit'.
A small, but tough-looking contingent of Marines had made a last stand here. They formed a defensive perimeter around the crates, their rifles held at the ready, their faces a mask of grim determination. They were the elite, the guards for the most valuable cargo, and they were not affected by the powder; their water supply was separate, strictly rationed.
"Stay back!" one of them yelled, his voice a hoarse command. He was a Lieutenant, a young man with a square jaw and a burning, defiant glare. "This cargo is property of the World Government!"
"And now it's mine," Arima said, raising the Sword of Triton. The blade hummed, a low, menacing thrum that vibrated through the air. The Lieutenant's eyes widened, a flicker of recognition, or perhaps primal fear, crossing his face.
He opened fire, a single, sharp report that echoed in the confined space. The bullet flew true, a streak of silver aimed at Arima's heart. But it never reached its target. Takeshi moved, a blur of motion, and the bullet ricocheted off the flat of his katana with a deafening clang, the spent round spinning harmlessly into a pile of ropes. The speed was inhuman.
Before the Marines could fire a second volley, Arima was upon them. He was a storm of steel and fury, a Yakuza enforcer unleashed. He didn't block or parry. He attacked. He drove the Sword of Triton through the chest of the nearest Marine, then ripped it free in a spray of arterial blood. He spun, the blade a silver arc of death, and took the head off another. He was a whirlwind of brutal, efficient violence, and the Marines' disciplined formations shattered like glass against the force of his assault.
Only the Lieutenant was left. He was a good swordsman, but he was outmatched, outclassed, and out of his depth. He fought with a desperate courage, a last stand for a cause he believed in, but it was a futile gesture. Arima disarmed him with a contemptuous ease, then slammed the pommel of the Sword of Triton into his temple. The Lieutenant crumpled to the floor, unconscious but alive.
Silence descended upon the hold, the only sound the ragged gasps of the two men standing amidst the carnage. The air was thick with the coppery smell of blood, a scent that was as familiar to Arima as the feel of a sword in his hand.
"This is the part of the job I enjoy the most," Arima said, a grim smile on his face, as he looked at the crates.
"The payoff is a necessary component of any risk," Takeshi replied, sheathing his katana with a soft click. "The work itself is merely the price."
They worked with a grim, determined efficiency, prying open the crates. Inside, nestled in straw and velvet, were the shackles and chains, the tools of the World Government's oppression. They were beautifully crafted, a work of art in its own right, the Sea Prism Stone glowing with a faint, milky light that seemed to absorb the lantern glow.
"Success is temporary," Arima thought, as he accessed the inventory. "Survival is permanent."
He began the process of transferring the crates, a tedious but necessary task. With a thought, a crate would vanish from the hold of the transport ship and reappear as an icon in the grid of his mind's eye. It was a strange, surreal experience, a magic trick that defied the laws of physics, but it was a magic trick that was making him a very wealthy, and very dangerous, man.
He was halfway through the transfer when Takeshi stiffened, his head tilting to the side, a gesture of focused listening that was so familiar it was almost a reflex. "Company," he said, his voice a low, tense whisper.
Arima stopped, the next crate hovering between the ship and his inventory, a ghost in the making. He extended his senses, the Observation Haki a blanket of awareness over the sea. He could feel the Sea Serpent, a tight knot of focused energy. He could feel the crippled transport ship, a bleeding, dying animal. And then he felt it. A new presence. A hot, angry, brutish aura, a pressure that was a physical force, a mountain of murderous intent that was heading their way.
"That's not the other frigate," Arima said, a cold, hard knot of dread forming in his gut. "That's something else."
"The timing is too perfect," Takeshi agreed, his katana now in his hand, the silver blade a sliver of moonlight in the dark hold. "This was a trap. Feng sold us out."
Arima grunted, a surge of cold, hard anger rising in his chest. He should have known. A spider like Feng never let a piece of the puzzle move without knowing the outcome. This wasn't a test; it was a gamble. She had bet on him to either succeed and bring her the prize, or fail and die, taking a potential rival out of the picture. Either way, she won.
"Higgs!" he yelled towards the deck, the command a raw, desperate shout that was swallowed by the chaos of the storm. "Get us out of here! Now!"
The response was the thunderous roar of the Sea Serpent's cannons, a defiant challenge to the approaching storm. Higgs was fighting. A flicker of respect, a genuine, unforced emotion, cut through Arima's rage. The mercenary was earning his pay.
"There's no time to transfer the rest," Takeshi said, his gaze fixed on the open hatch. "We have to go. Now."
Arima made a split-second decision. He grabbed the last open crate of shackles, the one he'd been about to dematerialise, and with a thought, sent it to the inventory. The rest of the treasure would have to be left behind. A calculated loss.
"Let's go," he said, and they bolted for the deck.
The scene that greeted them was a maelstrom of fire and water. The Sea Serpent and the remaining Marine frigate were locked in a deadly ballet, trading cannon volleys that tore through the night, the explosions painting the sea in brief, brilliant flashes of orange and white. The crippled transport ship groaned and shuddered, a dying behemoth caught in the crossfire.
And then, the storm hit.
It was not a beast of fur and claws. It was a monster of rock and rage. A massive, hulking figure exploded from the churning sea, landing on the deck of the Marine frigate with a force that splintered the timbers and cracked the main mast. The creature was a parody of a man, a titan of living stone. Its skin was the colour of granite, craggy and pitted, with glowing cracks of molten orange energy spreading across its body like a web of lightning. Its head was a blunt, featureless rock, with two burning coals for eyes. 'Iron-Fist' Rorkaan. He should've been on his way to Sabaody. Or so he thought he was supposed to.
With a roar that sounded like a landslide, the stone behemoth smashed its fists into the frigate's deck. The planks buckled and shattered, men screaming as they were thrown into the sea or crushed by falling debris. He wasn't fighting; he was demolishing.
"Higgs! Get us clear!" Arima roared, the wind whipping his words away.
"Their rigging's tangled with ours!" Higgs's voice came back, a desperate shout against the cacophony. "We're stuck!"
Arima looked at the gap between the two ships. It was a churning maelstrom of splintered wood and cannon fire. A normal jump was impossible. But he was not a normal man. He grabbed a length of the frigate's rigging that had tangled with their own, the thick hemp rope rough and solid in his hands. He braced himself, the muscles in his legs and back coiling with a supernatural density.
"Get ready to cut us loose!" he yelled to Takeshi. He took a running start along the deck, the wooden planks groaning under his feet. At the last second, he launched himself into the air, swinging on the rope like a pendulum, a human cannonball aimed at the chaos.
He landed hard on the deck of the frigate, the impact driving the breath from his lungs, but he rolled with it, coming up in a crouch. Rorkaan was a vortex of destruction, oblivious to the lone swordsman who had just landed in his midst. The monster was focused on the ship itself, on methodically tearing it apart.
Arima didn't hesitate. He charged. He brought the Sword of Triton down in a two-handed overhead swing, a stroke meant to cleave the monster in two. The blade, a weapon that had sliced through steel and flesh with contemptuous ease, struck Rorkaan's back. There was a deafening clang, like a blacksmith's hammer striking an anvil. A shower of sparks erupted from the point of impact. Rorkaan didn't even flinch. He simply turned, his burning eyes fixing on Arima, and the crushing, oppressive aura of his Zoan form washed over him like a tidal wave.
"You," the rock creature growled, its voice a grinding, geological rumble. "You have the stink of the sea on you. And the stink of another's property."
He swung a massive, stone-fisted arm, not with skill, but with the raw, unstoppable force of a falling mountain. Arima dodged, the sheer force of the blow tearing a gash in the deck where he'd been standing. He was fast, but he was fighting a force of nature. His sword could scratch the monster's skin, but it couldn't break it. This was the power of a Zoan, a primal, physical might that made a mockery of a Yakuza's refined techniques.
On the Sea Serpent, Takeshi acted. He didn't swing across. With a flick of his wrist, his katana lanced out, a silver streak in the chaos. The blade sliced through the tangled rigging with a surgeon's precision, the hemp ropes parting as if they were butter. The two ships began to drift apart.
"Arima! Now!" Takeshi's voice was a sharp, clear command across the water.
Arima was in trouble. He dodged another thunderous blow, the shockwave of the impact rattling his teeth. He was being herded, driven back towards the ship's railing. He couldn't win this fight. He wasn't a monster; he was a man who fought monsters. And sometimes, that meant knowing when to run. He feinted left, then darted right, using the debris and the screaming, panicked Marines as cover. He made a desperate leap for the rail, the gap widening between the two ships.
For a split second, he was airborne, a silhouette against the fire and smoke. He saw Rorkaan turn, the monster's burning eyes locking onto him. The rock titan raised a fist, the size of a wine barrel, and brought it down. Not at Arima, but at the ship's own main mast.
The crack of splintering wood was a gunshot in the night. The colossal mast, weakened by the earlier cannon fire and now shattered by the brute's strength, groaned and toppled. It fell with the slow, inexorable grace of a dying giant, directly towards the spot where Arima was about to land.
He hit the deck of the Sea Serpent and rolled, the massive boom of the mast crashing down a hair's breadth behind him, the wind of its passage a physical blow that sent him tumbling across the deck. He came up splintered, bruised, but alive.
"Rizzo!" he roared, pushing himself to his feet, the world a dizzying chaos of cannon fire and falling timbers. "Get us out of here! Now!"
Rizzo, the helmsman, was a pale, sweating mess, but he was a professional. He spun the wheel, his movements desperate but effective. The Sea Serpent's sails, still miraculously intact, caught the wind, and the ship began to pull away, her engine the desperate prayers of her crew.
Higgs and the twins were at the rail, the repeating crossbow in Pike's hands a constant, sharp thud as it spat bolt after bolt towards the monster. The armor-piercing rounds sparked and ricocheted off Rorkaan's stony hide, doing little more than irritating him. But it was enough of a distraction. The brute's attention was on the annoying insects firing at him.
Arima looked back. The frigate was a burning, sinking wreck, its mast gone, its hull breached. Rorkaan stood amongst the carnage, a colossus of rage and defeat. He had failed in his mission to retrieve the property, but in his mind, he had won. He had torn apart a Marine ship, a symbol of the order that hunted him. He was a force of chaos, and chaos, by its very nature, could never truly be defeated.
"You are a hard man to kill," Takeshi said, coming to stand beside him. His katana was sheathed, but he was still coiled, a spring ready to uncoil at the slightest provocation.
"I'm a survivor," Arima replied, his gaze fixed on the burning wreck. "And a survivor learns from his mistakes."
He had been arrogant. He had underestimated this world, its monsters, and its games. Feng's betrayal was a cold, hard lesson in the politics of power. He was not a player; he was a piece on the board, a pawn to be sacrificed for a queen's gambit. That was about to change. He was going to become a player. He was going to learn the rules, and then he was going to break them.
"She'll get an earful," Arima thought, a cold, hard glint in his eyes. He turned away from the wreckage, the image of the stone titan burned into his memory. "Rizzo, set a course for the island. Full speed. I want to be back in port by morning."
The Sea Serpent, battered but triumphant, turned her prow towards home, a predator returning to its lair. The night was long and tense, the silence on deck a heavy blanket of unspoken questions. The crew looked at him with a new kind of respect, a mixture of awe and terror. They had faced a monster and survived, not because of their training or their courage, but because of the man who led them. He was a force of nature, a whirlwind of violence and strategy, and they were caught in his wake.
They docked at the private cove just as the sun began to rise, painting the sky in shades of pale pink and orange. The port town was quiet, the streets empty, a deceptive calm that belied the storm that was about to break.
Arima gathered the crew on the deck of the Sea Serpent, the morning light a stark, unforgiving glare on their tired, bruised faces.
"We took losses," he began, his voice a low growl that cut through the morning air. "We didn't get all the prize. But we got enough. And we got something more important. We got a name. Rorkaan." He let the name hang in the air, a grim promise of vengeance. "He works for Feng. The whole thing was a setup. A test. A gamble."
He looked at Higgs, a direct, unflinching gaze. "You and your men fought well. You earned your pay. Your next job is to guard this ship and the cargo we brought back. No one comes aboard without my express permission. If Feng's people show up, you tell them I'll be in touch."
Higgs nodded, a flicker of understanding in his scarred face. "And what are you going to do, Captain?"
"I'm going to have a business meeting," Arima said, a cold, hard glint in his eyes.
He left the Sea Serpent and walked towards the town, Takeshi a silent, ominous shadow at his side. He was not heading to the Golden Lily. That was a place for diplomacy, for games. He was heading to the source of the problem. The Collector's auction house. The place where this whole mess had started.